


Echoes

by thegraytigress



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-10
Updated: 2016-05-10
Packaged: 2018-06-07 15:47:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6811741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegraytigress/pseuds/thegraytigress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She doesn't want him to be alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Echoes

**Author's Note:**

> **DISCLAIMER:** _Captain America: The Winter Soldier_ and _Captain America: Civil War_ are the properties of Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Studios, and Marvel Studios. This work was created purely for enjoyment. No money was made, and no infringement was intended.
> 
>  **RATING:** G
> 
>  **AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Church scene, only with more Romanogers! For the numerous people who requested it :-)

He falls apart in her arms.

The church is beautiful and huge, silent and empty, so his soft sobs echo.  The sound fills the spacious cathedral, ragged breaths bouncing against the vaulted ceiling, against the beautiful stained glass windows that glow magnificently on this solemnly beautiful day.  It reverberates over the vacant pews, rows and rows of them where friends and family the world over gathered not long ago to pay their respects.  His sobs are louder than they have any right to be, a cruel rebellion against just how hard Steve’s still trying to hold himself together.  He’s never done anything else.  Natasha knows that now more than ever.  She’s seen it all along, just how unwavering and stoic he can be in the face of disaster, but she hasn’t felt it like this.  Steve never lets himself be weak, never takes a moment, never stops fighting on.  He’s stalwart, purposeful, burying the pain he most assuredly feels down deep so that others can find courage in his courage and strength in his strength.  Despite all the horrors they’ve endured together, the Chitauri and SHIELD falling and their world collapsing all around them, she’s never seen him cry before.

He’s crying now.  He’s crying hard, but again, it’s nearly silent, quiet breaths against her shoulder where she’s tucked his face.  He’s so much taller than she is, bigger and stronger, but he’s crumbling against her now as she rubs his back and weaves her hand into his hair.  Every muscle in his body is coiled tight and firm under her hand like they simply cannot submit.  He’s trembling with that, with how raw and low he is, how desperate.  He’s shaking in her embrace, and it shakes her to her core.  She came here to help him.  She knew he would need it.  She knows him, understands him in ways she doesn’t understand anyone else anymore.  Faced with it now, with what she’s sure is years of pain pushing at his control and demanding its due…  She’s not sure what to do.  What to say.  She knows what he needs, but she doesn’t know how to give it to him.  She’s never known.  Ever since they fell together in this relationship they have…  Friends, but more.  Tied together. So many feelings neither of them acknowledges.  For living a life of half truths and convenient masks and gray ambiguities, the uncertainty of this has terrified her.  She’s run from it, run to find herself when SHIELD collapsed, run to Bruce in the aftermath, but she’s always come back to Steve.  Always back to Steve to _follow_ Steve. These last few months since Sokovia, he’s been so steady for everyone.  Helping Wanda with her demons.  Training the new team.  Bringing them together as friends and family.  Comforting her when her own guilt and shame and doubt grows too strong.  She’s watched and marveled at him and tried so hard not to put a word to the things she feels so as not to change or damage what they have.

She wonders if she allowed herself to see it – _say it_ – before, if this would be so hard for him now.  She rubs his back in soothing circles and glances at the picture of Peggy where it rests beside the altar beneath the podium.  Peggy was so beautiful, strong chin and sharp eyes, lush hair and lips.  Natasha’s seen her before, of course, but she studies her now.  She can’t help a moment reverence for her.  Founder of SHIELD.  The woman who shaped a century, paved the way for women everywhere to be soldiers and spies and heroes.  The woman who had helped make Steve Rogers the man he is today.  The woman he loves.  _Loved._ He’s alone now, more so than before.  It’s always broken Natasha’s heart a little, how he carries the weight of a world in which he has no place on his shoulders like it’s his only purpose.  He carries it and never falls.  He’s falling now, completely and utterly, and if Natasha had the courage enough to tell him before… 

_I’m here now._

“She’s gone, Nat,” he finally moans.  His voice is tortured, twisted.  Muffled into the shoulder of her dress.  He shudders, breaking apart more and more.  Every trembling gasp is another crack, another fissure in him, and they are spreading fast and harsh.  “Wasn’t ready.  I wasn’t ready.”

“It’s alright,” she promises.  The words come, and she lets them.  She doesn’t let her uncertainties or insecurities ruin this.  She won’t let his, either, not as he shakes his head against her, struggling still.  “It is.  You don’t have to hold it in, Steve.”  _You don’t need to fight._

He gasps a louder sob.  “Can’t let her go,” he moans.  “She’s…”

“I know,” Natasha comforts.  “I know.”  _She had you, too._   She says nothing more, letting him cry, letting the echoes of it wash over them both.  Her own eyes burn as she closes them, but she stands strong as he breaks more.  “Let it go,” she entreats.  “I know.  It’s hard.”  Still he resists, stiff in her arms, shaking his head against whatever thoughts trouble him.  And she knows she needs to go; the clock is ticking, in a sense.  The quinjet is ready to fly her to Vienna for the signing of the Accords.  She needs to be there, to represent the team and account for the damage they’ve done while defending them in turn from the politics they all fear.  She needs to do this for him because he can’t (or won’t – she’s not sure which and she can’t worry about that now).  This sort of thing used to frighten her, given the life she’s led, her own traumas and atrocities now bared and blatant for all to see.  She’s better now, thanks to Steve and what he’s shown her and taught her, thanks to his faith in her.  This is monumentally important, a moment that will define the future of the team.  A moment that defines their friendship.  That’s vital, and she has to do what she can to protect it.  So she’ll go, and she needs to go soon.

But not before this.  She needs to do this, too.  This is just as vital.  He’s rigid still, bottling it up like he doesn’t know how to cry.  Or he knows that if he starts, he won’t be able to stop.  She can’t let him suffer with this too, swallowing it down like so much poison, locking it up inside like one more thing he doesn’t talk about.  One more scar on his soul.  She can’t let him do that.  He’s done it so much and for everyone’s sake.  Not here and not now.

“You have to let her go, Steve,” she whispers.  The words come now, and they come easy.  They charge past her doubts and hesitations that maybe fettered her earlier, that kept her away and in the back of the cathedral where Sharon Carter’s words echoed.  Those doubts have chained her for what feels like forever.  She won’t let them now.  Her words come from that place inside where she keeps her secrets.  There used to be so many, but now there’s only one.  “Please don’t.  Please don’t do this to yourself.”

“You don’t need to–”  He’s still trying to be strong, even as he’s sinking down deep.  He tries pulling away, and she allows him that.  His eyes are wet and red.  She can read him so easily.  She always could.  _Don’t leave me._ “You don’t need to stay.”

“Yes, I do.”  She won’t leave him.  No, she wants to take it all away from him, give him this one thing he’s never gotten from anyone else: the chance to simply _grieve._   When he woke in the future, Fury shoved his shield into his hand and told him to go out and lead a team of strangers against aliens in a new world.  When Barnes came back, there was not a second to digest it or accept it.  There was a world to save and old enemies to stop.  And when Barnes left after abandoning him nearly dead on the riverbank, Steve simply picked himself back up and started looking.  Started leading anew.  He’s never had this, a moment to stop and let himself _hurt._

She’s not going to let him go until he takes that for himself.  She stares in his eyes, cups his face, uncaring of the tears.  “Yes, I do,” she says again.  She pulls him back to her, embracing him tightly.  “I do for you.”

He grimaces.  He’s being swept away.  “Never gave her that dance.”  He shudders, sinking again.  “Never could.  Last couple months…  I didn’t even…  I couldn’t stand it, Nat.  She was going so fast!”

“I know.”

“She didn’t have me then,” he whimpered.  “When she was dying.  I wasn’t strong enough!  And I never told her–”

“She knew.”

The sob he lets loose is raw, breaking, _broken_ , and it gets louder in the church, louder in the silence.  Like a wave it rolls back and forward, and she closes her eyes tighter and holds him firmer.  Her fingers are sure, gentle in his hair, pressing his face close even though his tears are wetting her dress.  “She loved you, too,” she says.  “So she wouldn’t want this.  Let her go, Steve.”

He doesn’t answer, lost in it now.  She strokes his hair still, rubs his back gently, whispers solace that is both meaningless for its simplicity and instrumental because she is the one saying it.  She can almost feel his heart racing, beating hard and fast against her chest.  Pain floods, pours from his eyes, those soft breaths echoing through her body as much as they are this beautiful, empty church.  The moments slip away.  Little by little, she feels the anguish leave him.  His muscles loosen.  The knots underneath her fingertips fade.  His racing heart, bleeding so much it seems, finally slows.  And he calms against her.

She holds him yet, holds him until the last of his sobs are quiet, until the last of his pain is spent.  Until the last echoes are silent.  He clings even after she loosens her arms around him.  His body is pliant, warm, flushed with the release.  Exhausted maybe.  She breathes deeply and wonders if she could be so brave now to tell him how she feels.  The words rise inside her, the truest she’ll ever speak perhaps, and they slip up her throat and prod at her lips.  She wants more.  She wants him.  She wants him to know she’s there for him, to know _her_ body and mind and heart.  Things she’d never shown anyone else she wants to show him.  She wants to give him everything.  She thinks she should tell him, as he relaxes at last and breathes easily and finds some semblance of peace.  Comfort in her arms.  She thinks she will.

He pulls back again, and his eyes are redder still.  His suit is rumpled.  His cheeks glisten in the church’s light, and his lips are wet and raw.  He looks crushed, devastated, but there’s hope in his eyes.  And gratitude.  And _light._ “Sorry,” he offers.  His voice is hoarse and strained, and he looks genuinely ashamed and regretful.

That makes her uncomfortable.  She quirks her flirty smile, the one she thinks he must like.  It’s almost a defense mechanism considering how easily it comes.  “It’s alright.  Even Captain America needs a moment to break down sometimes.”

He grins too, though it’s weak and tired, and gives a rueful chuckle.  She stares into his eyes, breathes his air, basks in the way he smells and feels.  Sturdy and strong.  The scent of soap and the aftershave he uses, a faint, clean, masculine fragrance she’s come to associate only with him.  It’s almost intoxicating, she’s so close, and she wants more.  She wants to kiss him.  She’s dreamed about it long enough, a girlish, silly fantasy that should be unobtainable except for the fact that it’s not.  They’ve been together long enough, as teammates and colleagues and friends and everything in between.  And he’s here, vulnerable and aching for a connection, and she’s here, in love with him and so willing to provide it.  His lips are right before to hers.  It would take nothing, her tilting up her face up to meet his, and she could almost imagine what it would be like.  That girlish fantasy.  A dream.  Their one kiss in DC haunts her still, a ghost happily roaming her thoughts whenever she allows it to.  How it felt.  How soft his lips were.  How he tasted.  It’s stuck with her, undaunted by her attempts to ignore it or replace it without another kiss.  She wants it again, has so badly for weeks, _months._ Would it be so wrong?

He hesitates, though, as if he’s noticing how close they are.  Where he is.  What he’s done.  What he’s lost.  “You should…”  He falters, like he’s forcing himself to continue.  “You should go.  I shouldn’t have kept you.  Go to Vienna and do what’s right for you.”

 _What’s right._  

Here and now…  _It’s not right._   Not after he’s just said goodbye to the woman who took his heart, to the girl with whom he would have spent his life had fate not been so cruel.  Natasha can’t tell him.  That tentative light inside her, hope and love and excitement, is doused by that, and she drops her gaze.  She can’t let him see the disappointment in her eyes.  And she draws a breath to steady her voice.  She can’t let him hear how much her own heart is breaking.  “Yeah,” she agrees, gathering her composure because lying is second nature to her.  _The path of least resistance._ “Yeah, I should.  You’re okay?”

“Yeah.”  His assurance is as forced her show of composure.  “Yeah, I’ll be okay.”

“Okay.”

He nods awkwardly, and so does she, and she drops her hands from him.  He wipes away the last of his tears and dons as best a smile as he can.  She tries to do the same.  A last look is too much.  Her heart shudders in her chest to hear the sound of her heels clacking on the floors, the echo of her steps too much to stand.  It’s like thunder pounding against her, the impact of each one jolting up her legs and into the core of her like a knife.  She draws a breath against the lump in her throat and stubbornly swallows it down and goes on.

“Hey, Nat?”

She turns.  He’s come a bit closer, smoothing his wrinkled jacket, and that fake smile isn’t so fake now.  He sniffles and draws a deep breath.  “You know…  When we lost Buck right before we went after the Red Skull, Peggy came to me like this.  Like you.  She tracked me down in a bombed out pub in London where I was…”  He scuffs his shoe almost bashfully, embarrassed.  “Going through about three bottles of scotch trying to drink myself into oblivion.  Needless to say, that didn’t work.”  Natasha can’t help but smile herself at that.  Steve spent a second gathering his emotions, the memory obviously fresh and troubling as much as it was comforting.  He clears his throat and goes on.  “She told me what I needed to hear.  That’s who she was.  She always did.  Still does.”  He turns back to the back to the podium, where Sharon Carter spoke earlier and where the picture of Peggy still rests beneath it.  He lets loose a long breath before facing her again, taking a few more steps closer.  “And she…  She promised me I wouldn’t be alone, too.”

Now he stands in front of her.  Smiling through fresh tears, he cups her face.  His hands are warm, big, his thumbs gentle on her cheeks.  He’s looking down into her eyes.  With nothing more than a breath and a blink, he’s kissing her forehead.  She leans into his touch, seeking more now that she has this.  He tips her face slightly upward, and his lips drift down, brush against hers, a tentative, chaste thing that’s sweetly perfect for being hardly anything it all.  His breath shivers against her cheek as he pulls her close.  Unwittingly she melts into his arms, her heart full of a tingling rush of hope.  “Thank you,” he whispers into her hair.  “Thank you.”

The church is silent while he holds her, and they’re together.  This is the moment that defines them.  The world is waiting for her, for them both to stand up and decide and keep fighting, but here and now, however long it lasts…

His heart beats.  So does hers, almost like an echo. 

**THE END**


End file.
